Dateline NBC - Facing Ground Zero: A Dateline Special

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

In this Dateline Special, New Yorkers whose experiences were captured in real time on September 11, 2001, reflect on what they saw, what they survived and how the attacks indelibly shaped their lives and the country. Former WNBC New York cameraman Ralph Patterson, World Trade Center Port Authority Police commanding officer Tim Norris, North Tower 82nd-floor Port Authority employees Daphne Carlisle and Muyiwa Onigbogi, NYPD detective and helicopter pilot Greg Semendinger, Newark Airport Port Authority Police officer John McDevitt, and FDNY paramedic Trinh K. Dinh share their stories of that day. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I heard a loud noise and I heard a woman scream. 9-11, as you've never seen it. What was it? It sounded like a missile, and it was like an explosion. Glass flew everywhere. Seven survivors and the moments they can never forget. I had my hand out and I copped it. It was filled with sand.

The thick smoke, it just engulfed me. I saw a woman that summer. a woman that somehow her clothes had been burnt onto her body. Oh my God! Oh my God! John, you're all right to go back? You got to see what's down? You guys going back? Yes.

It was like looking into the gates of hell. Our cameras found them on 9-11. This is a terrorist attack. Jesus. In America? Tonight, they take us back to that day. I was so confused. You could see first responders,

walking out of the cloud, they had to know that the comrades had been caught in that. Why me? Why did I survive? I was haunted. You'll never leave my mind. Facing Ground Zero. Good evening from Ground Zero on this, the 25th anniversary of 9-11. I'm Lester Holt. The scale event was incomprehensible. The deadliest terrorist attack in history with nearly 3,000 people killed. And yet for those who lived through it, the day unfolded right here as a series of harrowing moments and split-second, often self-sacrificing decisions. Tonight, in footage we uncovered in our NBC News Archive, some never-before-seen and some difficult to watch, you'll meet ordinary people pulled into chaos by chance who work with others by choice in a fight for survival. It is Tuesday, the 11th day of September. let's find out about that election day forecast.

Actually, he's looking pretty good. In 2001, I was a cameraman at WNBC. Mostly clear sky. That day, I found myself on an assignment in Lower Manhattan. It was a lot of fun. I had a polling place on a small assignment, a normal assignment, because it was voting day.

Thank you. So I went way back to the car to pack up. I heard a loud noise. And I heard a woman scream. I turned to where she was looking, and I saw a hole in the North Tower, a slit. I thought it was a helicopter that had smashed into the building. We didn't have cell phones back then. We had radios.

So I called the station, and I said, you know, there's a hole in the building. And he said, shoot it. Well, 9-11, it was a great morning, to be honest with you. Boyua, you were standing in front of my desk, as always. We used to banter a lot. I remember vividly, she said, good morning, Muiwa. And I said, wait a minute. Suddenly this morning, you say, good morning, you are being nice.

I said, why? And then she said, don't start with me. You know, it's too early in the morning. I'm not going to do that with you. And then, boom. And when I heard that, I was, like, kind of stunned. And I felt myself sway. I'm on the 80-second floor.

You don't sway on the 82nd floor. One of my coworkers came and screaming, saying, fire, the elevator's on fire. I know if I'm going to cover this thing, that the zone is likely going to be frozen by the police. And I need to get in there and get as much as I can. I put on a battery belt. I put the camera on.

and I started rolling. And as I went down rolling, I saw people in distress. I saw a woman get into a car with somebody and just bury her face in her hand. She was in tears. I saw people consoling each other. Then I saw a guy,

he was trying to explain to me. Did you see how that happened? What had happened? No. I heard, you know what I heard? He was very detailed. He was intense. I heard, uh, I heard, uh, before,

Before that happened. What was it? It sounded like a missile. It sounded like a plane. Like a, if you understand the sound before it hit something, like a, and it just like, and then impact, and it was like an explosion. I decided that I had to walk down nearer

to where the first responders were staging to help injury people. As I walked down, sirens started coming, fire trucks, police cars, Park Department police, all hands on deck type thing. I saw a woman somehow her clothes had been burned onto her body had melted. And I don't know if that happened on the street or where in the building that had happened, but she was intended to.

I was honestly trying to figure out what to be afraid of. Something going to come off the building and fall on me. I was afraid. There was fear, you know, there was fear. I went back to my desk, gathered my belongings, and I said, Muzwa, we gotta go. He said, okay, let's go. And we went down the first staircase we came to. Inside the staircase, there was water, you know, water was just flowing. I presume it was some fire sprinkler that went off. There was this sense of urgency.

urgency, but panic, no. The lights were still on, and people were still walking down, you know, calmly down the stairs, like it was a fire drill. There was nothing to alert me to say that something horrible happened. I worked for the Port Authority Police Department of New York and New Jersey. I was a commanding officer of the Western Zone, which included the World Trade Center. My task was to set up an incident command center in the lobby of building one. The North Tower, coordinating with the various responding Port Authority police units, FDNY units and the NYPD.

We had units going up into the towers to start the evacuation process and to gather information. We got reports from the fire department that it was an inferno. They had units up there battling it where they couldn't get a hold of it. department, first responders, and the police, they were on it. And that was reassuring. There was a guy behind me, and I turned to him with a camera rolling, and I asked him, you know, what did you see? What did you see? I ran out to the window, and I look out and I see smoke.

The next thing I saw, I mean, you got to look at it. The bottom elevator, the glass just flames exploded out the front of the World Trade Center. Glass flew everywhere. And the second plane came. in and hit. And I turned and I got the fireball and the explosion. That was, that was terrifying. And it was then that everybody knew, absolutely knew, this was not an accident. When I responded to the World Trade Center in 2001, our primary goal was to see if anybody made it to the roof. It was also to advise headquarters of the situation

so that we could get the resources up there that we needed. I would carry a camera all the time. It took a couple of shots real quick. The streams of smoke coming from the building were from people using furniture, whatever they could get to try and break those windows. People were trying to get air. or get out.

While we were up there, we had no idea a second plane was en route. Nothing came over the police radio, nothing came over the FAA radio, and then it hit. Oh, another one just hit. A very large plane

just flew directly over my building, and there's been another collision. The fireball was you. That plane punched right through the building, and we knew there's no way that two planes could have hit two separate towers on the same day. It could not be a coincidence. We could feel that the impact and hear it, it was an explosion up there.

At that point, we knew there was a terroristic event, that it wasn't by accident, a plane hit. We knew that we had to evacuate these people. The fire was out of control. I moved our command center over to building number five. We had Port Authority Police Fire Department, New York City Police units, EMTs. We're looking to help this exodus of people coming down through the towers. I'm not going to say Stampede, but they were running out of the building at that point. I covered riots before, had my band shot at.

But this was as near to... more coverage as I'd ever come. And that's when the level I think of panic went up. Come across the street from the Marion, man. People started talking about, how can I get out of here? A second airplane, a 727 just ran into the building. Where do I go? Do I go home? No, Joe, I'm going to get out of the city, you know?

I ain't staying here. Look, look at the second building. We were counting down, 37th floor, 35th. floor, the building shook, but we didn't know what it was. I'm just going out one step at a time, and there was water on the stairs, and I kind of slipped. I was done, I was tired, I couldn't step no more, and I thought Moosra I was too tired to go. She grabbed my hand, and he pulled me, he says, Doffney, we're going to go. The staircase was packed.

I would look up and I will see something like a spiral. Feel with people going as far as your eyes can see. While we were going downstairs, firefighters were going up. Occasionally I would pat one of them in the back. I say, you know, you guys are doing heroic job. They just seem very somber. The expression on their faces really humble. hunted me for a long time.

That was haunting. So, yeah. The aircraft was fully loaded with fuel. That fuel went throughout that whole floor and totally engulfed the building from one end to the other. I didn't realize until I got the pictures back that there was actually a guy

on the outside of the building. If I would have really... I realized that I would have called in the larger helicopter to try and do something. But I didn't realize it at the time. I had the camera kind of cradled in my arms shooting up. You could see debris and papers falling from the building. In the midst of that debris,

you saw an object that moved faster, it didn't flutter in the air. And then another move faster in people. move faster and passed on the debris. Somebody said, those are people. And when they landed, the sound was, you know, it's not something that you forget. It was just loud bangs.

We didn't know what it was. I was able to look up and actually witness people jumping out of the building. It was traumatic. It was traumatic, and it'll just never leave my mind. never leave my mind. There was a woman near me, and she was crying and screaming at the same time.

You know, why don't they do something? Why don't they put something underneath them to try to catch them? One of the officers said, If you can't handle it, go inside. Just go inside. I thought about their families on the other side, how they would try to manage that. Some people would think it was suicide.

and there was no way that was suicide. Somebody was trying to save themselves from an infernal. There was no way to help those people. There was no answer for that. Both towers had been hit. I called into the station, and they told me, there's a live truck down there. Meet them.

Don't let me forget this. Walter will be there. And as soon as we start the interview, pan up and just keep a shine on the break. Walter Perez was one of the morning reporters at WNBC. I'm ready when you are. And we started this life side. He was recapping what he happened, what he knew.

Okay, two blocks away from where the whole thing happened, and this entire area has been cordoned off and people that have been working in nearby buildings have been told to evacuate. That's what this mass exodus is to my left-hand side. Since the fire was getting very large, the Port Authority commanders decided to send Newark Airport officers to help in the evacuation.

We trained in aircrew. fire, whether it be an engine fire or, God forbid, a crash. One of the actually going two blocks away from the World Trade. I parked in front of a building that was probably 40 stories tall. I figured the vehicle would be protected. It was like raining papers. Full sheets of paper were raining down constantly from the towers. They were still standing and burning very, very rapidly.

We were told you guys from Newark Airport, you're the next group to go in as soon as we get air breathing equipment. We were going to be dispatched into the North Tower. We were putting on our aircraft bunker gear, which is a silver suit that protects us from very hot fires. It was sort of like going to war, but in New York City. I worked for the fire department of New York. I was an EMT. I was a rookie. I was nine months on the job.

That day, Ronnie Coyne was my partner. Ronnie was funny. He just never wanted to, like, leave the job, and he just loved it so much. He said, okay, dispatcher's going to send us down to the World Trade Center. We were actually really close. We were only, like, a few hundred feet away.

I'm going to start the interviews and then pan up. Walter was on the air live. you actually interviewed a couple of people. To my right, we have two witnesses, and, Marna, you work across the street. Tell me exactly what you saw on the street. I saw there's maybe about 30 or 40 people covered bandages in blood.

It looks like a lot of them were either on the floor of one of the exchanges. There's actually, oh my God! We're not sure exactly what happened, but it was another explosion on the far side of one of the buildings from where we're standing. I remember something that felt like a deep rumble and roar.

We're not sure if that was another explosion. or if that was advanced debris. But I don't think it ever occurred to us that it was the building coming down. We were almost at the lobby. When suddenly we heard a large boom and our building started shaking. I thought the building I was in was falling.

So this discussion went, like, shh. And it looked like the people was tumbleweeds. Like they was flying past the door because of the pressure of what was going on. At one point, it got so dark, we cannot see each other. I held my hand out, and I copped it. It was filled with sand. Inside me I was praying,

God, please save me from this. And I heard Daphne. And I remember just praying, please Lord, don't let it hurt me. I remember saying that really loud, I like to describe it as a thousand freight trains coming down. It was like a roar in the dust. The dust, everything was dusty and you couldn't see. To be honest, I was like a deer in the headlights,

and we were breathing that in. I wish I had put my jacket over my face so I could breathe, but it was too late. I could hear little pieces of cement hitting my jacket. I knew that I had to get some fresh air. get some fresh air. At this point, as you can tell, there's absolute pandemonium in this area

because of what had just happened. Exactly what? I can't confirm. We were trying to make sense of it. I'm sorry, I'm ignoring you. I'm scared to sh**les. Walter was trying to make sense of it. We were trying to impose reason

on these scenes, and it was breaking all the rules. There is a massive plume of snow coming in our direction. The police are telling us to move immediately. Shut it off, let's go. Okay, we're being told to shut off. We'll get back in contact as quickly. It was just thick black smoke, so we really couldn't see too far ahead of us, and we just saw people coming out of the smoke just kind of walking towards us.

We were like, come to our ambulance, let's clean you up, you know, you needed oxygen. And just more and more people just started coming out of the dust. So we were just loading people into the back of our ambulance just to get them out of that thick smoke so that they could breathe, you know. You watch to you, dog. It was still windy until after a while he started coming down. I heard the voice. Is anybody alive?

I said, yes, I can hear you. And then the voice said, okay, look for my flashlight. So I was heading toward him. I was holding Daphne's hand. So we were going, we were going. The ceiling of the lobby had. collapsed. So we were picking our steps in order to

just get to the way we'll be able to go outside. Myself and Daphne were probably the last person that came out. We came out almost like a ghost town. Very eerie, very, very very eerie to me.

Another firefighter he took us to the ambulance and he gave us water. I couldn't get the water to my mouth, I'll start going like this. And Daphne then helped my hand. She helped me train in on my mouth, and then I drank some.

A few minutes after that, I stabilized a little bit. When I first came out, I was so tired. I remember laying on this wall. I was exhausted. I'm just tired. I'm tired. I had no more energy. The first thing I did was I found a fire truck

that had a little bit of trickle water coming out of it, I washed my face. Peter Kuhn was my partner. You're right to? We worked together for 20 years, so friend and colleague. We stayed together the whole time, and we just started to get our breath.

We ran into reporters that wanted to know what happened. Where were you guys when it happened? At our command post, the Port Authority Command Post, yeah? Let on Bessie and West Street. The whole about a 20-story section just came coming back into the street. Into the street.

And I was okay. I was able to speak because my lungs were filled with that smoke. We weren't quite sure exactly what happened and they asked us was anyone injured. Any idea of a dust mass? I lost a life up there. How bad? There is. I got here 20 minutes to go from Newark Airport.

I really don't have any count, but there were a lot of people up there. 9 o'clock in the morning. Everyone's at work at 9 o'clock. The towers were filled with people. We were going to head back down there and see what we could do to help the walking wounded or whatever we could do. I know it's a strong building and the outside walls are holding up that building, but I wouldn't put it past that thing coming down. John, you're all right to go back?

I'll go back, yeah. You guys going back? Yes. Touch off. Dangerous. That it is. You're worried about that other tower? Personally, I am.

But you're going back anyway. I got fellow offices that might be trapped. I'm not trying to be a hero, but I think if you were in this position, you'd do the same thing. Good luck. I would only hope that you would. Good luck. Good shot if we're walking away. We couldn't...

couldn't just stay back and not do something. It was a two or three block walk and looking at the north tower from my vantage point was like looking into the gates of hill. The wind was feeding the fire right into that that hole and impact point. It was horrific. They were doing their duty. Back up! You've got an officer down. Particularly the officers and the firefighters up in the towers. They knew what the danger was, you could hear it in their voices, the urgency. They were working hard to get the people down the stairwells. Some people stayed on scene to help some disabled people.

We heard that over the radio. They would start mentioning names that this officer went upstairs because he thought he could get up higher in a different stairwell. Nobody said, you know, I'm out of here. This is too dangerous. They all stayed at their posts. I knew a lot of them. Over the course of my 27-year career,

I did recognize their voices. And also, I knew that they were up there. We were still just treating people that were just coming to us. And Ronnie, my partner, said, I'm going to go and see if I could find anybody else in the towers. So stay here. I was kind of nervous.

I was like, you're leaving me? But, yeah, he says, I'll be back. I'm just going to go see if I can find anybody else. You're just kind of like an autopilot. Just so much is going on, like you're just, you don't really think. After some time I passed, I was heading down towards the tower to see if I could find him. And everybody just started running the other way. They were saying the second tower is coming down.

The second tower is coming down. I couldn't go any further because the thick smoke, it just engulfed me. After the first tower had fallen, and we finally got out. I decided to go back in to see if I could find some more survivors. I saw an arm sticking out of the rubble. It was a bloody arm. And there was fire down there also, so there was a raging fire. Myself, I'm a firefighter, and I believe an FBI agent,

we were able to dig him out and carry him quite a ways back to that building. Across the street, there was a firefighter who yelled to us. Watch out. The next building is coming down. All the telephone lines are jammed up as people trying to communicate. We were a couple blocks away on the air live. They're trying to move the media to a safe area so we can do proper reporting and let everybody know exactly what's going on. For now, back to you. And it began to collapse.

Debris and the dust. Everything started cascading north. Just a moment ago, the entire top of the building collapsed. One guy, he was immensely frustrated. He was a firefighter. He threw his axe down, threw his helmet down. And you can see how frustrated they were. You can see the plume of smoke is coming in our direction.

Let's get out of here, Ralph. We're going to leave because of smoke is coming right at us. As the debris was coming towards us, I duck behind the truck with the camera still alive. And I held my shot as the debris came up the street. I wanted to stay alive as long as I got. I had to box up my emotions and document this rather than standing on the street and screaming. I was almost right on top of it.

I pretty much got a sequence of the North Tower going down. It was devastating for the people on the ground because the plumes of smoke and dust that were going through the streets. The fireman said, run, run. And this bellow of smoke was behind him. The dust, the wind, the whole thing caught up with us. Suddenly, it was very dark again. And I remember us running, and then somehow our hands broke loose.

And I remember seeing this bellowy smoke coming at me, and I remember praying. We were caught out in the open. myself, the firefighters, and then this unconscious man who we just extracted. Jesus. I was never so scared in my life. I mean, I thought I was dead.

Of course, your first instinct at that point in time is to save yourself. I was at the World Trade Center Police desk when the first tower collapsed. Tell me what happens, sir. Well, we were carrying an injured person out, myself in about four firemen and unfortunately that's when the building two collapsed describe what happened at the moment of impact it just rained building okay and I happen to

dive underneath the ESU vehicle I was buried alive at 15 minutes until I scrambled out how did you get out when you were into the truck to be 15 20 minutes of digging out okay I'm not sure what happened to the other people who were the other firemen who were with me We were back in there trying to bring people out. We knew the second one was about to come down, but we were lifting one person. When it came down, we all just ran for our lives. The firefighters, the civilian that we extracted

from building number four, the FBI agent, I never found out what happened to them. I was scared because I was new, and plus I don't know where my partner is. So I'm thinking something bad happened to him. And I'm thinking, how do I get around? What do I do? where do I go?

You got a lot of people, you know, tugging at you. Help me, help me. Somebody said, come help this firefight. He has a broken leg. And then when I went to go to my ambulance to get it, it was gone. And I actually ran into Roger, a paramedic that I knew. We linked up because he had lost his partner as well, and I had lost my partner.

And he said, hey, you know, I have an ambulance. Let's just work together and see what we can do. So we just kind of drove up as close to, the Twin Towers as we could and somehow we ended up in like the rubble of it all we had supplies and whoever needed help

mostly firefighters you know looking for survivors if they needed any help they would just come to our ambulance you could see firefighters and first responders walking out of the cloud covered in the powder

and the debris they had to know that their comrades had been caught in that. And they didn't have any kind of recourse. There was nothing that they could do. All we could do is to observe it. When I captured what I thought I could,

and I wanted to take stuff back to the building, I realized that my friend, my colleague, was on the 104th floor, a man named Bill Steckman. Back then, he would capture my signal. The voice was so nurturing, and he was so kind. He didn't make it. He didn't make it.

He got a smoke. He couldn't see anything. I was in the midst of what I smoked. Any message to your family? I said, I'm okay. Thank God I'm okay, Mom. I'm okay. The first time I felt safe is when I was sitting on the side with the reporters.

My name is Mojeewa on the board again. I did not know that the tower had collapsed. At the back of my mind, you know, I was thinking, we go back to the office, 82nd floor. I and Daphne will have quite a story to tell the other workers. You need to begin to fathom why. Why it happened? Why a plane had the building?

Why a plane was hijacked. Excuse me? What we understand is that plane might have been hijacked. It's a terrorist. Terrorist. This didn't happen by chance. Hold on. Did you say terrorists hijacked a plane into the building?

No, I couldn't even phantom. No, no. I was so confused. I just could not digest that on that beautiful day. Something that awful happened. They were also attacks in Washington. I'm telling you what the truth is, what's being broadcast right now, because you haven't heard of you were in the building.

This is a terrorist attack. Jesus. In America? I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say. To come out to find out a terrorist in this. I can't even be angry. It's senseless.

And people die since. You mean you tell me this building fell down senselessly? I don't know. I don't know. All I know I got up this morning come to work to do my job. I was spared. To this very day, I asked myself, how come I never looked back

to see what was going on behind me? I never looked back. All that time, I was learning for hours, and I never looked back. Thank God we are alive, that we got out of it, and my heart goes to the people who were still in the building

when it came down. It would take a long time for me to accept that the tower was down. The building was a village, He was a community in his own right to just say it down. Come on. After we were at the rubble for a few hours, we just kind of sat outside in the street just to decompress a little.

And it was at this time that I found Ronnie. I gave him the biggest hug. I think it's been like four or five hours since, you know, I saw him running into the towers. He talked to my platform. He was the one that ran into the collapsing building. I couldn't believe that, you know, he was alive. But somehow he made it out and found us.

Then the three of us started triaging out of the back of the ambulance together. You know, only Ronnie can tell his story. Fortunately, he's not with us anymore. He had pneumonia plenty of times after that day. And, yeah, I think that's what he finally succumbed to. If I was there earlier, I might have been inside the building, myself. Our commanders made a decision. They didn't want to send anyone back to the site because they knew that they lost too many men already. Officers ran into those buildings to help,

and they had no idea the buildings were going to collapse. No one did. We drove back to Newark Airport and we couldn't believe what happened. Why me? Why did I survive? And these other men that had young families, why did they have to perish? They were friends, they were colleagues. Port Authority Police lost 37 officers that day. My command, we had 19 officers respond. Out of the 19, at the end of the day, six of us were alive. It was an incredible heavy hit.

For years, I had survivors' guilt. All those people, why, why me? I remember my sister saying to me, you know, September 11th row back around, they did the name calling. She said, you know, I could have been down near saying your name. She says, but I'm so blessed that I'm not. Well, you are. He was determined to live. He pulled me down 30 flights of stairs.

He will not let him. And I call him my hero, you know, and he laughs about it. You are. As far as dying, I was not ready to contemplate that. 9-11 was the most impactful thing that happened in my life. Probably it will be as long as I live. The totality of the whole thing never sunk in until later on. I can't believe the 25 years have gone by.

The World Trade Center today, It's in a spot that's a sacred place. It's also a tribute to our country that we rebuilt something to take the place of the World Trade Center. There's no way around it. It's trauma. I mean, I allow myself to cry if it bugs me and move forward. I'm not bleeding.

But I've been imprinted with this horrible scene. and it still impacts me. In those moments, as horrific as they were, we as people were unified, we were open to helping each other. I hope we can learn those lessons without having something as horrific as that. When I look back on that day,

I think of widows, I think of husbands, I think of children, I think of parents, all the funerals I've been to since that day, and how those families were affected by that. And I remember the officer's faces. It was a beautiful day. We were just going about our normal everyday life like anyone else is doing today, and it happened.

After 9-11, you heard a lot, never forget. And that's why I'm here today. I'll never forget the faces and, of the people who put their lives forth that day. Here in New York City, 2,753 people perished on 9-11. We also remember the 184 who died at the Pentagon and the 40 passengers aboard United Flight 93 who forced their plane down in Pennsylvania,

as well as the many who have died since from 9-11 related illnesses. For those who watched from afar, memories of all those victims will surely linger. So will the resiliency and bravery we witnessed that day, a test of it to the best of us in the worst of times? That's all for tonight. I'm Lester Holt. Thank you for joining us for all of us at NBC News. Good night.